As Wen Jiabao walks into the press conference room, lights focus on him and the applause accompanies his steps. Then, with his voice slightly cracking he said: “Journalist friends, this will be my last National People’s Congress press conference“. Wen Jiabao is the sixth serving prime minister of the People’s republic of China and ranks third out of a nine member Politburo of the Communist Party of China, the real power organ of the world’s…
In most recent years a famous graph, showing how deep the recession is in the UK and what is the path of recovery, appeared periodically. The graph is made by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) and compares the profile of the worst recessions in the UK over the past 100 years. The graph clearly shows that the last economic decline from 2008 is the longest of all compared episodes and that…
The aging Estonia and Europe need to accept that the state has to earn and save before it can spend and must remain within its limits both financially and functionally, writes Jürgen Ligi, the Minister of Finance. Right now, large English language news channels could bear the common name ‘eurozone crisis’ and they could all be merged. All their attention is directed towards the crisis and the keyword with which it all starts and ends…
Marshall is coming back to Europe, where British argue with French about banking rules and Greeks want to place mines on the borders. Even though a new wave of recession is flooding Europe, rating agencies turned gentlemen and raised a couple of ratings. Fiscal pact hasn’t properly cooled down yet and there is already anti-austerity mood in Europe, not only among demonstrating people but also among politicians. Maybe it is because of the level of unemployment in…
Radicalism in France: „it’s not a sin to make money!“. Free movement of people is in danger. Why everyone has to save money just the EU doesn’t? Britain is back in recession.
Are there the first signs of banks‘ restructuring? Will Netherlands lose its AAA rating? Spain won a battle, but the war is not over yet. Sarko once again wants to reach for the treasure buried in ECB, Argentina is nationalizing, Italians are burning paintings, and ECB officials are afraid of inflation. Following Germany, also Ireland will determine the constitutionality of the „fiscal pact“ and the new European Stabilization Mechanism. They were challenged by the Irish MP…
Will a knight from the executive board of ECB buy problematic bonds for his private portfolio as well? Are the „fiscal pact“ and ESM unconstitutional? Do you know that through the European funds you are also contributing for the early retirement of the boss of the company which was bought by Facebook for a billion dollars. It seems that the period of peace brought about by the massive intervention of ECB is coming to an end. The…
On March 2, EU-25 leaders signed the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, commonly called the Fiscal Compact. The Treaty was not signed by the Czech Republic and Great Britain. Lithuania joined the treaty, but it still needs to be ratified by the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas). Not being a member of the eurozone, Lithuania would be able to choose, which particular provisions of the treaty to commit to. However,…
Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians think that the primary cause of smuggling is taxes higher than the living standards in these countries, which generates differences in prices
Europe promised even more money which it doesn’t have, Spain promises painful cuts, Slovakia higher taxes. Euro Bill keeps increasing, we will pray for its rescue and just 11-year-old Dutch children want to expropriate Greeks. We will start this week rather gloomily. On Wednesday morning an older man, former pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas, committed suicide by shooting himself at the busy square in front of the Greek parliament in Athens. He left a letter, in which he…
